Joe Palooka #95

Harvey Comics' long-running boxing champion takes a turn toward Cold War thrills in this 1956 adventure. The cover — signed by Ham Fisher — shows a wild, rain-lashed scene: a young man on a bicycle careening along a rocky cliff edge with a ramshackle wooden shed mounted behind him, while a red aircraft swoops menacingly overhead. The cover caption sets the stakes perfectly: "the package had to be delivered…Humphrey broke thru the Iron Curtain, but suddenly there was a rat-tat-tat of a machine gun…" — pure edge-of-your-seat suspense for a dime.